How Did the
Portland YWCA Respond to Religious and Racial Differences in the Portland
Women's Community?

Research
by Tanya Pluth

The
YWCA's purpose to "build a fellowship of women and girls"
(1934) meant negotiating the inclusive and exclusive aspects of the
organization's religious basis for membership. On the exclusive side,
"fellowship" by definition excluded non-Protestants for most
of the twentieth century. On the inclusive side, the religious basis
could bridge barriers of age, class, and to some extent, race and culture.
For example, the Portland YWCA's "Sunday At Home" worship
services sought out "Big girls, Little girls, Bachelor girls, Mothers,
Sisters, Cousins, and Aunts."[1]
Breaking the barriers against women of color posed a distinct set of
challenges, however. Many urban YWCA's established segregated "branches"
for African-American and Asian-American women. Although national and
regional conferences were held only in facilities that could accommodate
delegates from diverse racial backgrounds and in Portland, black women
were admitted to YWCA dormitory rooms, the rest of the facilities at
Taylor Street remained segregated until the 1950s.[2]

Greek
Goddesses

Movement
toward a more inclusive fellowship took energy from the "Social
Gospel," a theory of Christianity that accented an applied, practical
expression of faith. The Social Gospel was popular at the turn of the
twentieth century and the national YWCA officially embraced it in 1911.[3]
Problem-solving -- rather than protection or evangelicalism -- was seen
as a bridge to social change, especially when women tackled their own
issues through petitioning, organizing, and agitation. In the Portland
YWCA, many leaders embraced an ethos of friendship or a "spirit
of love" rather than politics. This spirit of love emphasized individual
relationships and humane values, and was often vested with a special
power for overcoming social problems, especially racial prejudice. This
spirit helped generate YWCA support for progressive social policies,
like civil rights, open housing, and equal accommodations after World
War II. The spirit of love proved less effective in resolving inequities
of power both within the organization and in the surrounding community,
however.[4]

Dorothy
Baker (on the right)

After
the financial strain of constructing the building at Tenth and Main
in the 1950s, the Portland YWCA struggled to keep up with a changing
social and political context. The organization broke its employees union
in the mid-1960s and, with the sale of the Williams Avenue Center in
1959, lost touch with black women just as the Civil Rights Movement
went into high gear. The National YWCA's One Imperative to end racism,
adopted in 1970, finally created legitimacy for challenges to long-standing
inequities in the organization. In 1975, the Portland YWCA settled a
racial discrimination suit out of court brought by Dorothy Baker, a
social worker employed in the Women's Prison Project. This resolution
side-stepped rather than resolved the problem of racism in the organization.[5]

3.
Credit for the Social Gospel in U.S. Protestantism is usually given
to Congregational minister Washington Gladden (1836-1918) and Baptist
pastor Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918). For the Social Gospel's application
in women's reform efforts, see Ralph E. Luker, The Social Gospel
in Black and White: American Racial Reform, 1885-1912 (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991) and John Patrick McDowell,
The Social Gospel in the South: the Woman's Home Mission Movement
in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1886-1939 (Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 1982).Back
to Text

5.
Board of Directors Minutes Notebook, January 1974: "We need more
love, time, and money." Portland YWCA Archives, Portland, Oregon.
The connection between this outlook and the YWCA of Portland is Tanya
Pluth's original insight.Back
to Text